2008
Archery Season
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After starting out on a bad note of having
extremely bad weather in the beginning of the
season, it finally cleared for three days.
With all of my
years of bow hunting, one of the things I have
learned is that if rain is in the air...it's
time to pack it in.
Too many deer
are lost by bow hunters that brave the elements
and decide to hunt anyways only to get a good
hit on the deer but loose the blood trail
because of the rain washing it away. |
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I had spent a
considerable amount of time in the preseason cutting
trails, brush hogging, doing 8 food plots and a lot of
preseason scouting. I was seeing a lot of deer but here
were a few of my observations for this year.
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The doe's were having
their fawns later in the summer...some as far ahead
as the beginning of August with the majority of them
in late June, early July. This meant that the rut
actually occurred later in the year than the normal
mid- November and more like mid-December.
-
It had to be a good
winter for the deer because I was seeing and still
am a bunch of really healthy last years fawns. Even
the doe's in the spring looked fat and happy.
-
I went into where our
deer winter and saw no winter kills.
So now to the Story....
As I stated before, most
of our early and the beginning of regular bow season was
hampered by rain. I still went out and sat to see where
the deer were located and what
bucks were using the areas...but not willing to shoot even when
I had doe's within 10 yards. I had at one point, three
bucks directly below my stand just milling about not
even aware I was even there. I had by rifle season,
counted 9 different bucks feeding on the property with
the best being an average eight (8) point.
The year I harvested the
143 class buck, I had no clue he was even on the
property. I think what I have learned over the years is
that when the rut starts to take off....buck can and
will travel longer distances on the search for hot does.
What does this mean? It means that the bucks range can
and will increase by as much as five miles when their in
the pursuit mode of the rut. That's why your all of a
sudden start seeing bucks that weren't there to start
with.
Back to the archery
buck...
I had decided to set-up
in an area that I knew deer were transitioning from
their bedding area aka swamp to the feeding areas. This
was a morning hunt and I was all set-up by 7am. The
morning started off by watching gray and red squirrels
run her and there collecting nuts from the oaks trees.
The year was a bumper crop for all mast crops in our
area...even the apple trees were loaded.
As
I sat there that morning, I couldn't but think of just
how lucky a man I was. Here I sat on a beautiful cool
morning, watching the sun as it peeked its way up
casting its bright rays through the trees as a way of
saying good morning to all of us with its sunrise. Who
could ask for more.
As the sun awoke...so did
all the little critters in the woods. The squirrels and
chipmunks were busy harvesting all the acorns and seeds
they could find. Every so often they would stop what
they were doing and look toward my way as to
say...something is out of place. I was garbed in full
camo sitting up against the base of an older hemlock
tree about 15 yards off the trail that lead down into
the swamp thicket where the deer liked to bed during the
day.
The
crunching of the leaves had brought me awake out of
daydreaming state of that monster buck standing within
shooting distance. The crunching stopped and then
started again. The sound was coming from out of the swamp,
headed back toward the fields. I
had decided that if it were a decent sized doe or
buck...I was going to shoot to start to fill the freezer
with fresh venison.
I gently set the arrow in
the whisker buscuit and notched it too the string
clamping on my release to finish the process. Whatever
it was, it was headed in my direction. There had already
been numerous false alarms that morning where the
crunching of the leaves turned out to be squirrels, a
flock of turkeys 12 in all, a porcupine, a male grouse
and umpteen chipmunks.
Finally I was able to
make out the pitch black nose of the deer as it worked
its way through the thicket. When the deer finally came
to a stop, he was 12 yards to my left and would have to
travel another 5 yards in the same direction to step
into one of two possible shooting lanes. I could feel my
heart pounding as we both stood in a perfect non moving
statue position.
Finally he put his head
down and that gave me a chance to bring the bow back to
full draw. I kept saying to my self...4 more steps and
he is mine. At that moment he and a large gray squirrel
spotted each other. The gray squirrel made a loud
commotion and ran in the opposite direction causing the
deer to do the same. All I could do is what had now become
instinctively over the years and that was to let out a
loud blat noise.
It's a cross between a
calf and what a doe bleat sounds like. I let the bow
down about the same time I saw the deer come running
back in my direction looking for another deer that had
blatted at it. At first all I had was a straight on shot
at 20 yards and there was no way I was going to take
that shot...plus I still needed to get the bow back to
full draw without being spotted.
The deer dropped its head
and turned in the direction he would have gone in the
first place had that nasty squirrel not scared the crap
out of him. As he stepped broadside at 15 yards...I let
the arrow fly and watched it hit its mark.
Letting everything quiet
down after ten minutes, I decided to go look for my
arrow and mark the spot in order to come back after a
couple of hours to start the tracking process. As I
approached that spot, I could make out the white
underbelly of the deer laying not 20 yards from where he
was hit. I quietly backed out and returned 2 hours later
to retrieve my deer.
The New York Hunter
